As air travel and other types of travel have become ubiquitous, the complexity of travel arrangements has dramatically increased. Travel schedules have become increasingly confusing because of complicated connections, hub-and-spoke travel systems, flight changes, and weather delays. Many uncertainties face a passenger desiring to make a flight from her local airport. Highway traffic may cause the passenger being late for her flight. Long lines at the check-in counter, baggage drop-off, or security checkpoint often result in a passenger missing her flight. If a passenger misses, her flight, it can have repercussions on her entire travel schedule, as connections are missed and people planning to pick her up at her destination are left waiting. Many factors contribute to a passengers missing her flight and the consequences of missed flights in terms of lost time, lost money, lost revenue for the airline, decreased customer satisfaction, and increased stress can be severe. To assist passengers, some airlines and other providers provide electronic notifications to a passenger's wireless device when flights are changed are delayed. This does not, however, allow for a passenger's, itinerary to be changed.
Because so many factors can result in a passenger missing her flight, many passengers leave for the airport (or other travel hub) early so that she has additional time to accommodate delays. In circumstances where these delays do not happen, the passenger often arrives at her gate early. In many cases, the passenger often does not realize that seats on other flights may be available to her destination and accordingly does not seek out those flights and instead simply checks into her original flight. Many airlines are willing to accommodate passengers who desire to fly on an earlier flight, but the passenger typically needs to make a special request to do so. While a helpful representative may be able to suggest an earlier flight, this adds additional work on an already overburdened ground crew. This problem is exacerbated on busy travel days or at heavily-used airports. As this solution requires customer service representative time and is only somewhat effective, as many passengers do not even realize that such an option exists, this is an unsatisfactory solution. Because most passengers do not change their booking to an earlier available flight, passengers often waste time in the airports, seats on the aircraft go underutilized, and passengers become subject to any delays on later flights.
A passenger who misses her flight must contact a customer service representative of the airline in order to book a hew flight. This process can be very time consuming and frustrating, as customer service representatives are typically overburdened and may be inconveniently located. Also, in some cases, customer service representatives may automatically rebook a passenger on a later flight without notifying the passenger or others waiting to pick up the passenger.
There is, therefore, a need for an efficient and effective mechanism for managing the travel itinerary of a user, particularly for passengers with scheduled service on a common carrier such as an airline. There is an even greater need for such a mechanism when a passenger is likely to be late or substantially earlier for her travel.